Chahta Amptoba: Choctaw Traditional Pottery (Part
III)

Iti Fabvssa

This article is the third
in a four-part series on Choctaw traditional pottery and its
revitalization by Choctaw people. The two previous articles
discussed the importance of pottery in Choctaw traditional culture
and described the raw materials and pottery-making techniques used
by Choctaw traditional potters. This article will present the
traditional firing process, which magically transforms dried mud
into finished, functional pottery.

It's mid-summer, and the
hot sun is drying up and hardening the soil across much of
Oklahoma. With enough sun and summer heat, clay soils can literally
dry out as hard as bricks. But no matter how hard the soil gets
this summer, when the rains wash over it this fall, it will again
become soft and squishy. The same thing is true for traditional
pottery made from native clay. No matter how carefully the potter
builds the pot, and no matter how long the pot air-dries, as soon
as it comes in contact with water it will turn right back into
slick mud. For a pot to be useable, it must first be passed through
a fire so hot that the clay is forever changed into a hard
stone-like material that does not dissolve in water.

Choctaw people have
traditionally paid very high reverence to fire. One of the ancient
names for it is "luak hvshtahli itichapa," meaning "fire the friend
of God." This name captures the connection that Choctaw people
perceived between fire on earth and the sun in the sky, which
itself was conceived of as the eye of God watching the earth. Each
Choctaw village maintained its own sacred fire, extinguished and
rekindled every year during the Green Corn Ceremony, or "Luak
Mosholi." All of the households within a village obtained their own
fires from this sacred fire. Fires were treated respectfully, and
certain things were never done to them, or spoken around them. The
process of pottery firing was and still is approached
reverently.

Today's Choctaw potters
fire their pottery on dry days, preferably in the evening, when the
wind is at its calmest. The process (see photos) begins in the
afternoon, when the earth on the spot where the firing is to take
place is churned over with a shovel to a depth of about 6 inches.
Then, a fire of hardwood is built on top and allowed to burn down
to coals. These coals are churned into the loose soil, and another
fire is built on top and allowed to burn to coals. This process is
repeated until the heat has completely dried the soil.

Once the heated ground is
dry, the remaining coals are pushed out into a ring around the dry
earth. Dry, broken pieces of fired pottery are laid on the hot
earth and allowed to heat up, and then to start cooling down. Pots
that have been air drying for at least two weeks are set on this
layer of broken pottery, where they are allowed to slowly and
evenly warm. Before the coals die down, more wood is added. Slowly
a small fire is built around the pots, but not allowed to touch
them directly.

Pottery firing is a
tricky process. If the pots are not heated very slowly and very
evenly, they will break in the fire. Our ancestors had no
temperature gauges to monitor the process of the firing, but they
knew how to judge the temperature by paying close attention to the
fire and the pottery. As the pottery heats up in a wood fire, it
will turn a dark color from absorbing smoke. Once the pottery
becomes dark, it is safe to build the fire in closer so that the
flames begin to touch it. As the pots are engulfed in flames and
continue to heat up, they will turn a light color. This is because
the clay has become hot enough that the carbon from the smoke has
burned out of it. The fire continues to be slowly and evenly built
up and around the pottery. As the wood burns and the pottery gets
covered with coals, the clay will start to glow a dull red color.
This point is usually reached about three hours after the pottery
is first put into the fire.

When the pottery glows
red it is at roughly 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and is functionally
fired. Chemical reactions have taken place in the clay that drive
off the water that was ionically bonded to the clay particles.
Also, the clay particles themselves have begun to melt together.
These changes make the clay hard and forever impervious to
water.

The final color of a pot
is a result of the fire's interaction on the specific minerals in
the clay. A light-colored pot can be attained by using wood that
produces little smoke (such as dry cedar limbs without needles) in
the later stages of the firing. Pots can be made a black color by
pulling them out of the fire while they are still fairly hot, and
burying them in a pile of leaves to smolder. Pots left in the coals
to cool in place will usually have fire clouds of light and dark on
their surfaces.

Once fired, the pots are
fully functional. Eating bowls can be used immediately. Cooking
pots must first be seasoned with oil, then they can be set right in
the hot coals and used just like cast iron.

The pottery making
process developed by our ancestors is a pretty impressive
technology. Today,
when western-trained potters see our Choctaw potters digging native
clay out of the ground or firing pottery in an open wood fire, or
cooking right on the fire in traditional clay pottery, their jaws
usually hit the ground in amazement. What our Choctaw potters do
every day is something that many western potters think is simply
impossible until they see it being done. Clearly, the Choctaw
pottery process was originally developed by skilled and intelligent
people. Today this same process is being revitalized by their
descendants. Next month, some of these traditional artists who are
bringing Choctaw traditional pottery back to life will be the focus
of the fourth and final part of this series.

This article and others came from the Choctaw Nation
Biskinik. To see more history please refer to the following
sites.